I Love Sturrock

What's so unbelievable about it? Bannan loves a reckless challenge.

Some people really can't wait to get the knives out for a manager, can they? Waiting with hands tantalisingly above their keyboard for that first defeat in five games. For what it's worth, I thought we put in a perfectly good away performance for 40 minutes until Onomah gave away a very unnecessary free-kick in a dangerous position. We'd limited them to half-chances, had a goal from Nuhiu ruled out and put a free header on a plate for Matias. All of our confidence and fight seemed to drain away once they scored the first goal. Maybe this was the fault of the manager, but sometimes it's difficult to motivate players who've run their tails off to defend all over the pitch away from home, and then had a soft goal render that hard work pointless.

When Forestieri plays on the left-wing or as a left-forward, he does work hard making forward runs, but he only works hard defensively when it suits him and it's guaranteed to get the crowd to clap him, like a lung-busting run to close down someone who's just tackled him. He doesn't do the defensive dirty work that nobody notices to help the full-back/wing-back behind him, like tracking a runner if the full-back gets sucked by somebody else on that side. Matias isn't perfect, but he does this dirty work for the man behind him much more. This is even more important at the moment when the person playing on that side is Matt Penney, because the last thing a developing young lad needs is for Forestieri to hang him out to dry. Maybe Penney's looked so confident because Forestieri hasn't been playing in front of him. The last three managers Forestieri's played under (Jokanovic, Carvalhal and Luhukay) haven't had a clue how to use him, because if you play him as a striker, he gets bullied and doesn't have space to run at people, but if you play him as left-winger or left-forward, he sulks (because he prefers playing as a striker) and doesn't do the defensive dirty work to help the full-back behind him. Jokanovic put him on the bench a lot in Watford's promotion season (Deeney and Vydra were untouchable up-front and Forestieri couldn't play on the wing because of the reasons stated) and the club were happy to sell him to us in the end. Carvalhal tried playing Forestieri as a striker but he'd get bullied and go missing a lot as a result, but because of the refusal to track back on the wing, Carlos ended up putting him on the bench and only playing him on the left-wing when we were losing and going for broke anyway. Luhukay has clearly not been impressed with his attitude in the slightest so far, and prefers Matias on the wing instead because he'll do the dirty work. Forestieri apologists who've been questioning Luhukay's sanity for leaving him out might want to consider that there's a common thread running though the last three managers he's had.

It shows that Carlos Carvalhal didn't know what he was doing, and Jos Luhukay does.

I'm all for giving players time to settle in and prove themselves, but Van Aken has been here for a year and shown no improvement at all. He can ping a ball across the pitch 40 yards, but his poor positioning and awareness are no better than when we bought him. I'd rather see Thorniley or Hutchinson in a back three than Van Aken. I'm afraid he's been another waste of big money, which is why we're in a mess now.

Good thing we're not in the PL, then

Well, quite the opposite actually. Carlos had almost a fully fit team for the first few months of this season, and we were still poor and getting worse. Luhukay hasn't had that luxury (or anything approaching it) in a single game, so bringing up "similar" injuries to compare both is ridiculous. I'm certainly no happy clapper, because I was happy to tell people early into his second season how Carlos was taking us nowhere. I'd probably even swap Jos for Mick McCarthy right now if you offered me the opportunity. However, Jos has been here for what - three months? He had no money to spend in January and had barely seen his squad before the window closed. He inherited a squad full of inadequate, unfit, unmotivated and overpaid players, and he inherited it all from Carlos Carvalhal, the man responsible for it. Let's bear some of this in mind and give Jos a genuine chance before we rush to judgement.

Mick McCarthy. He's had Ipswich in and around the play-offs in recent years with sod all money, and it's because his man management, organisation and ability to spot players is probably the best in the league. He's got experience with Wolves of having a bit of money and winning our league. He even kept them in the Prem for a couple of seasons against all odds. If he came to us and had a bit to spend, he'd sail out of the league. I know he doesn't like us, but what if Chansiri waved a bit of money at him? Ipswich fans have been giving him stick for months. He might think about one last go at the Premier League.

Amazing how Rhodes gets his confidence back when the manager isn't hanging him out to dry.

And now we're rushing him back again out of desperation.

Forestieri, Hutchinson, Lee and Lees have picked up numerous injuries in recent seasons, so it shouldn't have taken Nostradamus to predict that we might need good quality cover for them all. It's just Carlos all over. He fails to plan ahead for something, gets bitten on the bum for it, and throws some excuses about to cover his tracks.

I can't believe I'm responding to a comparison between Carvalhal and Ferguson, but here goes anyway... Ferguson went to Aberdeen and took a team that hadn't won the league since the 50s to three league titles, four Scottish cups, the European Cup Winner's Cup, the European Super Cup and the Scottish League Cup. He got shown patience at Man Utd because it was obvious he was a very good manager who would bring success given time. What does Carlos have on his CV to suggest he can progress a club given three years at it? If anything, this season is proof he's doing the complete opposite. I just don't get this blinkered view that because of examples like Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger (examples that probably make up 0.0001% of all managers), every single manager must be given years at a club regardless of the circumstances. When it's obvious it's going stale, why waste more time and money?

Is there a negative Carlos post you haven't replied to on this forum with your own particular brand of effluent? Here's the Samaritans number for you when we sack him: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/contact-us

There's certainly a time and a place for a manager staying for years if it's clear they have a long-term vision and are improving the team - like a Pochettino at Tottenham, for example. However, I completely agree with you that sacking a manager seems to have become a dirty phrase in recent years amongst the management and journalism fraternities, who all ultimately look out for each other and perpetuate the myth that sacking a manager is always a bad thing. They love to trot out the fact that Alex Ferguson was about to be sacked until the Man Utd board showed patience, as if Ferguson isn't the 0.001% outlier of all managers. Watford's owners have made a great success in recent years of switching the head coach when it has become stale. Zola's stint there got them to the play-off final, and they got rid of him a few months into the next season when it was obvious he wouldn't improve upon it. Sound familiar? They arrived at Jokanović the season after (after a couple more changes, admittedly) and got promoted automatically. Karanka got Middlesbrough to the play-off final after struggles near relegation under Tony Mowbray, and got time from his board the season after because they were around the automatic places all season and the season-on-season improvement was clear to everyone. He rewarded this patience with automatic promotion at the end of that season. In comparison, Carlos Carvalhal inherited a team from Stuart Gray that finished comfortably mid-table (13th) and included some very good players picked up for nothing by Gray, like Westwood, Lees, Loovens, Lee and Huchinson. Carlos had much more to spend on fees and wages that Gray ever did, and completed a good achievement by getting to the play-off final. The next season, Carlos was given even more to spent on fees and wages and although there were big-spenders in the league like Newcastle and Norwich, we were comfortably at the top table with the fees on Reach, Abdi, Pudil, Fox and Winnall and wages on Fletcher, Rhodes, Emmanuelsson, Buckley and McManaman, not to mention massive new contracts for Lees, Forestieri, Westwood, Lee and Hutcinson. Although we eventually finished 4th thanks to a good run at the end of the season, for the most part it was difficult to see how Carlos was improving us. These concerns were fully realised in the play-offs, where a Huddersfield team with no money showed up our head coach's negative approach to big games. At this point with Carlos after another play-off disappointment with the same style and the same mistakes, other teams in the past saw there was going to be no improvement and made a change. We didn't. In fact, we gave Carlos a brand new contract and allowed him to spend even more fees (Rhodes for £8m and Van Aken for £4m) and wages (Boyd on a big contract). Before anyone starts about Chansiri buying him players and Doyen Sports being involved, I'd argue that as well as the numerous times Carlos has admitted he identifies players himself (remember his list of 200 centre-halves?), Van Aken and Boyd have got 'Carlos Carvalhal player' written all over them. They suit his preferred style of play to a tee. Van Aken's a defender who's good on the ball and allows moves to be started from the centre-backs, and Boyd's a winger who isn't fast or tricky but can work hard and interchage with midfielders in the middle. So with all this in mind, is it that unsurprising that Carlos isn't delivering an improvement this season? Where other clubs saw the writing on the wall and acted, our unqualified support at the same time is going to lead to disaster. We allowed Carlos to be the one to benefit from the Chairman's spending, and now we're in trouble because Carlos has been found out and we can't spend our way out of it.

Are you sure that isn't the queue for season ticket refunds?